A talk on training the heart in a time of heat: drawing from the Fire Sermon, the Sutta Nipata, and lived stories – showing how equanimity and compassion meets suffering without collapse, numbness, or bypass.
The talk explores the sutta, The Advice to Anathapindika. The sutta reveals how Anathapindika bestowed the teachings of non-clinging and letting to those of us who ar householders. The talk concludes with a current story of a near death experience that embodies the realization of the goodness of the dharma.
After a brief general account of the three ways of liberating insight, we look at each of the three--insights into impermanence, dukkha, and not-self--with a longer treatment of insight into not-self. There is an emphasis especially on how we practice in order to come to these insights. We close with a passage from Ajahn Chah pointing to the unity of developing samadhi and cultivating insight. The talk is followed by discussion.